Empty-shoes tribute to gun victims

[media-credit name=”RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post ” align=”alignright” width=”270″][/media-credit] Ryan Chavkin, 18, left, and Addie Glass, 15, students of East High School, hug after helping set up 1,500 shoes on the west steps of the Colorado state Capitol on Thursday. The event was organized by Silent March, a nonprofit organization that used the empty shoes to illustrate firearms-related trauma in Colorado from the 1999 Columbine High School tragedy to the 2012 Aurora theater shooting.

The empty-shoes display, organized by Silent March, immediately reminded me of another tragic event. The Holocaust Museum in our nation’s capital, has the first empty-shoes tribute. Let’s not ever forget either one of these heart-rending, symbolic memorials of so many lives lost.

Susan M. Dessimoz, Canon City

This letter was published in the April 20 edition.

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Congratulations to the creators of this eloquent statement about the human cost of our national gun obsession. But until a similar tragedy affects pro-gun advocates personally, I fear the impact of this display will be lost on them.

Steve R

Tom could you be more idiotic? Well probably but to say that people who are pro gun have never experienced loss or a tragedy involving gun violence couldn’t be more wrong and misguided. However pro gun advocates understand that adding more laws or banning guns all together, will do nothing to stop the real problem. Criminals and other bad people will always find a way to get their hands on a weapon and to prove this point you need not look any further than the great city of Chicago. Chicago has in place some of the toughest (if not the toughest) gun laws in the country, yet they have had one of the worst gun violence rates the city has ever seen. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Chicago is a perfect example of what happens when we add more laws. I know as a liberal it’s impossible for you to see anyone’s point of view who does not agree with you but thinking that people who are Pro Gun are that way because they have ever experienced a tragedy due to gun violence is quite possibly the dumbest thing you have ever posted…and keep in mind you post a lot of stupid comments!

Dano2

speaking of idiotic, folks calling statements of regret for our gun violence ‘idiotic’ and then falling into using the same ol’ tired talking points is idiotic.

Best,

D

toohip

yada yada yada, same song. same dance Can’t you genus (without the “i”) come up with a new argument or message?
Tom is correct, statistics clearly show that gun violence frequents the poor and those that have the financial means to avoid gun violence, and I’m not taking about arming themselves. Gun violence doesn’t frequent the rich or those with means, including the gunnies. And it’s not that gunnies defending themselves or we’d be reading DAILY about “a good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun. Instead we read about just more and more gun deaths of the innocents. Six year old kids and their teachers in their classroom, theater-goers, college students in classrooms, high school kids in school. If you’re a “reasonable” gun owner or gun advocate, how about coming up with some “reasonable” gun control measures, and more guns is not the solution.

TomFromTheNews

Thank you for proving my point.

andyandy

“However pro gun advocates understand that adding more laws or banning
guns all together, will do nothing to stop the real problem.”

Oh, they “understand” it. My impression is that they believe that if they repeat the same ridiculous slogans often enough, that somehow they’ll be true.

If more guns made us safer, this would be the safest place on earth. It ain’t.

Furthermore, the easily-manipulated, easily-frightened “pro-gun” crowd, of which you are apparently a part, are buying guns faster than ever before. Are you predicting that gun violence will drop as a result of this enormous cash-grab by the NRA and the industry they shill for?

Wanna put some money on it?

Robtf777

Perhaps some should consider an “empty shoes” tribute…….to the 50 million human lives that were aborted since that awful and dreadful day in 1973……..when “capital punishment” for the innocent “unborn” was codified into Law by an immoral United States Supreme Court…….who will one day stand before God……along with ALL who defend that “right to slaughter.”

Odd how some people whine and cry when a murderer commits an act of murder…..but then think that what they defend…….goes unnoticed by God.

Hint: If we EXPECT a Just God to judge those who murder……and those who ENCOURAGE the commission of a murder…….(think of the Columbine Killers, the Fort Hood Killer, the New Life Church Killer, Abortion Doctor Tiller’s Killer, the Connecticut School Shooter, the Boston Marathon Massacre And Cop Killers……..with Absolute Justice and Righteousness……then those who Absolutely Defend the Slaughter of Abortion…….will get……exactly……what they deserve…..will they not?

Believe it or not, a million were aborted every year in the US BEFORE Roe v Wade, which means that despite abortion being legal, the “per capita” number of abortions has actually GONE DOWN since that legalization (believe it or not, it has to do with the use of contraceptives, not that more folks suddenly became abstinent).

Dan

Please. Empty emotional appeal with zero scale or perspective. How many people died of other causes during the same time period? What about the total population size? What percentage of the population does 1500 over that time period represent? This is nothing but propaganda to illicit emotional reactions making people more susceptible to their anti-gun message.

Dano2

speaking of emotional appeal, clearly the NRA said something to appeal to your emotions, and now you dutifully parrot their propaganda talking points. That elicits an emotion in me…here it comes…LOLz!

Best,

D

MaxPlanck

While the gun fetishists exhaust their seemingly endless circular and slippery slope arguments, this public safety problem will be remedied, although not necessarily resolved.

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